Guest Blog

Digital Dominance: an event report

Digital Dominance was described by its co-editor Damian Tambini as a ‘problem-definition’ book rather than a ‘solutions’ book, taking an interdisciplinary approach to questions such as the implications of the effect of tech giants’ market and social power on media pluralism, freedom of expression and electoral legitimacy.

The Future of Welsh-language broadcaster S4C: Funding and Remit

In March 2018 the long awaited independent review of S4C under the chairmanship of Euryn Ogwen Williams was published by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS). Its aim is to assess the current remit, funding arrangement and governance structure of S4C and provide recommendations on how S4C can continue to […]

Nuisance calls – a light at the end of the tunnel?

Nuisance calls have been a long-running problem that I’ve posted about on this blog several times before. My last post was nearly three years ago, following the 2015 UK General Election, which interrupted use of the £3.5m allocated for this in the March 2015 budget. At the time I suggested that […]

Decision to refer Sky bid to regulator a blow to Murdochs – but will it be short-lived?

The planned full acquisition of the pan-European broadcaster Sky by the multinational media conglomerate 21st Century Fox has caused many concerns about news plurality, media concentration, and the vertical integration of internet service provision and content creation. In this post, Des Freedman (professor at Goldsmiths, University of London) comments on the statement by Culture Secretary Karen Bradley that she […]

Here’s why the Murdochs’ bid for control of Sky must be referred to Ofcom

After Fox has now formally notified the European Commission about its bid for the broadcaster Sky, the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, Karen Bradley, has 10 working days to decide whether to refer the bid to Ofcom for review. In this post, Martin Moore, Director of the Centre for the Study of Media, Communication and Power at […]

Transparency of media ownership and privatisation: challenges faced by Serbia

Transparency of ownership represents one of the foundations of free and independent media. While in western democracies ownership transparency tends to be high, LSE student Milan Dinic argues that this is not the case in countries undergoing transition to the west, Serbia being one of them. He looks at the state of media ownership in Serbia as the country […]

Internet freedom in Iran: attitudes to anonymity, privacy and FOI

In the lead up to this year’s high level event to review the progress of the goals outlined at the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), stakeholders gathered in Geneva for the WSIS forum on March 25. Kyle Bowen, researcher at Small Media, looks at some of the findings of his organisation’s latest report, which is based on […]

Reimagining, not diluting the BBC in the next decade

Continuing our series of posts responding to the BBC Charter Review Green Paper, Michael Klontzas of the University of Huddersfield looks at the latest developments from a longer term perspective, arguing that the BBC is increasingly being used by governments as an instrument of public policy and that this has a significant impact on its core purposes.

The English High Court just invalidated the UK’s bill on retention and investigation of communications data that was enacted in 2014 in the wake of the overturning of the EU Data Retention Directive by the European court. Lorna Woods of the University of Essex explains the ruling and its implications.

BBC Charter Green Paper: Inside the bizarre logic of the BBC review

Des Freedman of Goldsmiths, University of London responds to the BBC Charter Review Green Paper, wondering it came to be that ‘Strictly Come Dancing’ should be a major symbol of the debate, and analysing the different measures of ‘value’ that various parties have used to judge the institution.

Who would have expected that one of the central debates about the future of the […]

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